Chapter 25
LENA
The hospital lights hit me like an assault.
After the dark mountain road, after the endless minutes of pressing my hands against his wound while the truck bounced over ruts and potholes, the emergency entrance was too bright, too loud, too much.
Harsh white light poured over everything, sterile and unforgiving, illuminating the blood on my hands, my shirt, my jeans.
His blood. So much of his blood. The metallic stench of it filled my nostrils, mixed with the sharp sting of bleach that seemed to seep from the hospital walls themselves.
The truck had barely stopped before Viktor was shouting, before people in scrubs were running toward us, before hands were reaching for Raphael.
Words flew past that didn’t make sense. Pneumothorax.
Chest tube. Trauma bay. My mind couldn’t process them, couldn’t do anything but cling to the bond pulsing between us, fragile and thin but still there.
Still there. He was still there.
They lifted him onto a gurney with practiced efficiency, their movements sharp and urgent in ways that terrified me.
He was so pale under the lights, his skin gray where it should have been warm, his chest barely moving with each shallow breath.
The wound in his chest still bubbled faintly, a wet sound that made my stomach turn.
I could smell the blood on him, could smell the faint trace of gunpowder residue, could smell the fear-sweat that clung to his skin.
My fingers were locked around his hand. Somewhere between the truck and the gurney I had grabbed it, and now my grip was slick with blood, refusing to let go. His skin was cool. Too cool. Wolves ran hot, I knew that now, and the chill of his palm against mine felt like a warning.
“Ma’am.” A nurse, her voice gentle but firm, her face professionally calm in a way that made me want to scream. “Ma’am, you have to let go. We need to take him to surgery.”
No.
The word screamed through my head but didn’t make it to my lips.
I couldn’t let go. If I let go, he would slip away.
The bond told me how tenuous his grip on consciousness was, how close he was to drifting into that darkness completely.
The connection between us was stretched so thin I could barely feel him anymore, just a faint whisper of warmth where there should have been fire.
“Lena.” Viktor’s voice, low and steady in my ear. His massive hand closed over my shoulder, warm and solid, anchoring me to something real. “You have to let them work. He needs surgery. You have to let go.”
The bond stretched as they started to wheel him away, thin as a single strand of hair, fragile as frost on a window.
It pulled at my chest, at something deeper than muscle or bone, a connection that went all the way down to whatever part of me was capable of loving this deeply.
My fingers loosened against my will as Viktor gently pried them from Raphael’s hand.
“He’s strong,” Viktor said, his voice rough with an emotion he was trying to hide. “He’s a wolf. He’ll fight.”
They took him through double doors that swung shut behind them with a sound like a verdict, and I was left standing in the chaos of the ER with blood drying on my hands and the bond stretching, stretching, stretching until it was barely a whisper in the back of my mind.
But it was there. Still there. I clung to that fact like a rope over a chasm.
Clara. The thought surfaced through the fog of terror, and guilt crashed through me in its wake.
I turned and saw her standing by the entrance, pale and shaking, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold her own body together.
Dmitri had a hand on her shoulder, guiding her toward a row of plastic chairs.
She looked so young in this moment. So scared.
This was my fault. I had dragged her into this nightmare because Michael wanted to hurt me.
“Miss?” Another nurse, clipboard in hand, her eyes taking in the blood soaking my clothes. “Are you injured? There’s blood…”
“It’s not mine.” My voice came out hoarse, scraped raw from the screaming I didn’t remember doing. “It’s his. It’s all his.”
The nurse nodded, professional sympathy in her eyes that I couldn’t bear to see. “We’ll need some information. His name, any allergies, medical history…”
“His name?” the nurse asked, pen poised.
“Raphael Antonov.” At least I knew that much.
“Date of birth?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Shame hit me like a slap.
I was his wife. I had shared his bed, known his hands on my body, let him inside me in ways that went beyond the physical.
And I didn’t know when his birthday was.
Our entire relationship had been built on a contract, on a forced marriage, on circumstances neither of us had chosen.
I knew the taste of his skin and the sound of his heartbeat, but I couldn’t answer a simple intake question.
“September 14, 1993,” Viktor said, stepping forward. His voice was steady, professional. “No known allergies. Blood type O negative.”
The nurse nodded, scribbling on her clipboard.
Viktor continued to answer her questions, rattling off medical history and emergency contacts with the ease of someone who had handled pack injuries before.
I stood there useless, my attention fixed on the bond, on that tenuous connection linking me to wherever they had taken him, and tried not to drown in the realization of how little I actually knew about the man I loved.
The nurse directed us to a waiting room, and I followed Viktor and Dmitri and Clara down a hallway that seemed to stretch forever, the fluorescent lights overhead casting everything in harsh white.
The waiting room was small and beige and smelled like disinfectant and old coffee and quiet desperation.
Plastic chairs lined the walls in cheerless rows.
A television in the corner played muted news, images moving silently across the screen, utterly disconnected from the crisis consuming my entire world.
A clock on the wall showed 4:17 AM. The numbers meant nothing. Time had stopped having meaning.
I didn’t sit. I couldn’t sit. I stood by the window, staring out at the dark parking lot, all my focus turned inward to where the bond pulsed faintly in my chest. Like a heartbeat. Like a prayer.
Viktor brought me coffee from a machine in the hallway.
I held the paper cup without drinking it, letting the warmth seep into my bloodstained fingers.
The heat felt wrong. Everything felt wrong.
Somewhere behind me, Clara had curled into a chair, her head on Dmitri’s shoulder, finally sleeping.
The adrenaline crash had taken her. I envied her the escape, and hated myself for the envy.
He was there. Weak. Distant. But there. I held onto that presence like I was holding onto him physically, like my grip on this fragile connection was the only thing keeping him tethered to life.
Maybe it was. I didn’t know how mate bonds worked when one of them was bleeding out on an operating table.
The clock said 4:47. Then 5:23. Then 6:15.
Time moved like tar, thick and slow and suffocating. Every minute felt like an hour. Every hour felt like a lifetime. I paced. I stood. I pressed my forehead against the cold glass of the window. I held onto the bond with every ounce of will I possessed.
A nurse came. Young. Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her expression was carefully neutral in a way that made my blood run cold.
“He’s still in surgery. There were some complications, but the surgeon is working on it.”
Complications. The word hit me like a fist to the sternum. Complications meant problems. Complications meant things going wrong. Complications meant he might not make it off that table.
“What kind of complications?” Viktor asked, his voice calm in a way mine couldn’t be. He had risen from his chair to stand beside me, a solid presence at my back.
“The bullet nicked an artery. They’re working to repair it. He’s lost a lot of blood.” She paused, her expression carefully neutral, giving nothing away. “The surgeon will update you when there’s more to tell.”
She left. I went back to the window. The sky was starting to lighten beyond the parking lot, gray bleeding into pale pink at the edges. Dawn was coming, and I couldn’t feel anything but the fading warmth of the bond.
Through that connection, his presence wavered. Strong for a moment, then dimming. Strong again, then fading. Like a signal going in and out. Like a flame guttering in a draft. Each time it weakened, my heart stopped. Each time it strengthened, I could breathe again.
I made bargains with any god who might be listening. Take my savings. Take my hotel. Take ten years off my life. Take whatever you want, just let him live. Let him come back to me. I’ll give anything. Everything. Just don’t let that bond go dark.
The bond dimmed again, and I pushed back. Not just holding, but reaching. Sending myself toward him, wrapping around that fading connection like I could reinforce it with my will alone. Like I could pour my own life force into him and keep his heart beating by sheer stubbornness.
Stay with me. I’m right here. Feel me. Follow my voice back.
Viktor sat in one of the plastic chairs, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
Even he looked exhausted, the lines in his face deeper than I had ever seen them.
He had been on the phone earlier, speaking rapid Russian to someone back at the compound, but now he was silent. Waiting, like me. Helpless, like me.
The clock said 7:42.
The bond went silent.
One moment he was there, weak but unmistakable, a distant warmth in the cold hollow of my chest. The next moment there was nothing. Absolute nothing. An emptiness where he should have been, a silence so complete it felt like someone had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart with bare hands.